Common Forms Of Mortgage Fraud

Mortgage fraud motivations could either be for profit, or for real estate properties for sale . There are actually two types of mortgage fraud – fraud for property and fraud for profit. However, fraudsters also adopt to the changing environment so more schemes emerge as home buyers, sellers and investors are becoming aware of their fraudulent strategies. In the same way, every citizen must know the different types of mortgage fraud or schemes. Here are some of the already scratched types of mortgage fraud schemes but are still victimizing people:

1. Churning – This is described as an extreme or uncalled-for selling or lending activity just to benefit from generating fees and commissions or comparable sales. Normally; appraisers use bogus sales as comparables in appraisal for sales and refinance transactions.

2. Chunking – This is described as multiple loan applications submitted to many lenders not disclosing the investor’s intent to purchase properties. The fraudster usually promises to handle the deal including the leasing of properties, or show investors how to get rich by investment, but actually takes a cut of the profit and never leases the property.

3. Property Flipping – This may be legal, but there are some cases that property flipping becomes illegal especially when homes are funded for a falsely inflated value.

4. Silent Seconds – In reality, silent second mortgage is a secondary mortgage placed on an asset not known to the lender of the original or loan. If the buyer cannot afford the down payment required by the initial mortgage, this is very useful. It is called ‘silent’ because the lender is totally clueless of its presence. Conversely, the fraud happens when the second mortgage is used to fulfill the obligation of the down payment.

5. Equity Theft – What fraudsters do is that they falsify a deed transfer or a satisfaction of lien then obtain new liens on the property. The homeowner, on the other hand, does not know about it until he receives an eviction notice. One form of equity theft is foreclosure rescue scam.

6. Backward Applications – In order to meet the criteria of the loan, there are some borrowers who ‘customize’ their income sheet once they find a property to purchase. Aside from this, a ‘customized’ appraisal is submitted along with the bogus application in order to be approved of the loan.

Everyone must be aware of the different mortgage fraud schemes because it is so easy to be aware of mortgage fraud these days without you knowing it. Affinity fraud, foreclosure rescue scam, straw buyers, inflated appraisals, and so on are other types of fraud schemes that you need to responsibly know.

By educating yourself with these common mortgage fraud schemes, you are helping in reducing the number of foreclosures, prevent neighborhoods to fail and ad valorem taxes to go up.